The Assembly on Tuesday postponed indefinitely any action on the 10-cent-per bag excise tax for retailers making $1 million or more. The proposal first surfaced last summer.

It would have required retailers turn over the money they collected from the tax, with a provision to keep 20 percent as a collection fee for on-time filing.

Then a simpler plan emerged from Wasilla, where officials say 140 large retailers — including Walmart, Sears and Target — do business, compared to nine in the borough's other two cities of Palmer and Houston.

Wasilla's city council voted Jan. 8 to ban plastic shopping bags at big box stores starting July 1, making the city Alaska's third (after Bethel and Cordova) to officially outlaw the bags that clog roadsides, catch in trees and pose a threat to fish and wildlife.